Re: 3rd party application integration guidelines - how to be a good shell citizen?

[Holger Berndt <berndth gmx de>]

On Mon, 25 Apr 2011 09:31:13 +0200, Johannes Schmid <jhs jsschmid de>
wrote:

> * Interact once in a while: This is a classic example of just moving
> it to a second workspace if the window really gets in your way.

Interesting. I never had the idea to use workspaces to get rid of
windows (especially in dynamic workspace arrangements), but rather to
group windows according to activities.

> * Important background task: As it is a "background" task you don't
> want to have a window available at all times. Just don't tie the
> application lifetime to the lifetime of the primary window. If you
> need user-interaction (or want to make clear that the application is
> still running) use the notification spec in some way. I think the new
> extra emblems in the dash might also help here.

So the application should fire a persistent notification on startup?
That sounds a bit like notification-abuse, but I'd have to try it for a
while.

> I know that these concepts are different from anything we did before.
> But "hiding" windows often means that the user really doesn't find the
> window anymore ("Where did this window go?").

Users have been taught to search for them in the tray. I'm sure there
are better ways for that, but I'm doubtful that abusing the notification
system or the workspaces (both of which have been designed for other
purposes) is the way to go.

> I agree though that the empathy window is currently out-of-place in
> the GNOME shell design but it will likely just be merged into the
> overview in 3.2. But that's mostly because the chat stuff is
> integrated into the shell anyway now.

Yes, I've been thinking about that too. Clearly, integrating things
directly into the shell has its advantages, but also its risks. Former
GNOME versions aimed at being welcoming to 3rd party applications.
GNOME not only as a desktop, but also as a platform with base libraries
and interface guidelines for anybody wanting to blend in.

> As I said before, probably discuss the overall design in #gnome-shell,
> they might have some other ideas.

I'm currently only rarely able to do real-time communication (and
even that only very slow), and hoped that Shell folks also followed
this mailing list. In any case, I appreciate the comments I got :-)

Holger